Illogical but Reasonable Limits to Freedom

Classical liberals, like me, always say that fundamentally one is free to do anything one wishes as long as one does not coerce others against their will. This very simple approach leads to everyone being better off through mutually beneficial trade (I sell you an apple for £1 because I value £1 more than the apple, and you buy the apple because you value the apple more than £1, hence both of us gain in value).

However this kind of freedom could result in situations which most people would regard as unreasonable. An example is production and sale of nuclear weapons. But banning production and sale of nuclear weapons results in breaking the classical liberal fundamental principle which undermines the coherence of classical liberalism.

Firstly let me outline different but related ideas: Sorites paradox and slippery slope fallacy. I will then use to show exactly how the classical liberal thinking may be faulty in terms of informal logic.

In Sorites paradox, one begins with a heap of sand and one continuously removes grains of sand until one is left with just one particle of sand. The paradox: at what time did the heap stop being a heap?

The slippery slope fallacy can be illustrated with the following scenario: a tree in a forest falls. The probability it makes another tree fall is 0.9. The probability that 3 trees end up falling is 0.9*0.9*0.9=0.729. The probability of more trees falling approaches 0 as one calculates the probability of more and more trees fall.

Now here is the puzzle:
In a liberal and open society law is such that one is free to do whatever one wishes as long as it does not impose on others. Clearly this means that one may make and sell firearms (single particle of sand). What about other weapons? Can one make and sell large nuclear weapons (the heap of sand)? Clearly any reasonable social order would curtail the freedom of individuals to produce and sell such weapons because the risk of use of such weapons is just too devastating. This reasonable step has just broken our liberal principle of freedom to allow anyone to do anything one wishes as long as it does not harm others. What about small nuclear weapons? These ought to be reasonably banned too. What about biological or chemical weapons? As we move down the scale of lethality at some point society must stop banning weapons in order to allow the freedom of the individual of having and trading a firearm, which reasonably ought to be allowed for self-defence. But this sudden break in what is considered too lethal and ok is arbitrary, just like when a heap of sand stops being a heap and becomes just a number of particles of sand. For me it is unreasonable for people own fully automatic assault rifles but pump action shotguns are ok, while for others it is very unreasonable for people to own pump action shotguns while very reasonable for people to own assault rifles. An open liberal society thus must either ban all weapons or not ban any weapons to stick to the coherence of the principle that law is not arbitrary.

Some problems arise from such a scenario. Firstly, if an open and liberal society wishes to avoid arbitrary power of the administrator, it must allow all weapons to be made and freely traded or none at all. Clearly both of these are undesirable to the classical liberal. What is the objective test the society use to define weapons which cannot be made and traded?

Secondly we assumed that there is a slippery slope which inevitably will lead to all forms of weapons being banned if society bans just nuclear weapons. However as we have seen with the trees in a forest example, this could be a fallacy in itself as the individual events in the chain are discrete and may break the chain that leads to the supposedly inevitable event of all weapons being banned. The slippery slope argument which is often used by classical liberals may be a fallacy if the events in the chain are not clearly illustrated and proved to be likely. Although history often demonstrates that slippery slope to an illiberal outcome often occurs, we cannot place our faith fully into the idea that it will occur again if a piece of legislation which is illiberal, is passed. By arguing that since other slippery slopes have occurred in the past, they will happen again we are also hitting upon the David Hume’s problem of induction (just because something often happened in the past does not guarantee it will occur again in the future). So by using the slippery slope argument the classical liberal runs the risk of two logical fallacies: the fallacy of slippery slope and the problem of induction.

Clearly there is some thinking to be done by classical liberals. Specifically there appears to be some very reasonable but nonetheless arbitrary limits to freedom and classical liberal argument against certain legislation may be unfounded in logic (but not in history).

On the Virtues of Gay Marriage

We do not treat people equally because all are equal. We treat people equally because all are different. These differences make everyone so valuable. One cannot exactly know how a person thinks or what experiences he has had thus one will never predict what kind of contribution that person can make to society.

In order to allow a person the maximum scope within which he is able to exploit his knowledge, talents and ambitions, and thus contribute something, law treats everyone the same so everyone has a level playing field. Arbitrary rules which elevate some while dragging other down are avoided. Discrimination and privileges are frowned upon. However this does not mean in any way that one must automatically like other people. Not liking someone is subjective and arbitrary. It dictates how one treats others in private personal relationships but it should not prevent one from recognising a person’s contributions.

In modern society there are few areas of life where illiberal discrimination still exists. Slavery has been abolished, women have been set free and given the vote, and justice no longer recognises a colour of a man, at least not in Europe and not in theory in USA. Since enlightenment we have been free to think. But even though most battles have been won by liberalism the war is not over. Probably the last area where prejudice and lack of respect for freedom of men still exist is in sexual orientation. Gay marriage is an example of a much wider fight for freedom of people to love who they truly love and not be coerced to betray their real feelings. It is also a fight for those feelings to be tolerated and accepted as just as valid as feelings of other people. Many argue against gay marriage because they do not want this tolerance to be allowed. Liberty, as it turns out, has enemies of all political creeds. Lets examine of the main arguments against gay marriage and by extension against gay rights.

Marriage, in a strictly utilitarian sense, is the commitment of two people to a lasting relationship and a signal to the rest of the world, predominantly to the state, to treat the pair as a unit. This manifests itself mostly in taxation, housing rights and other administrative policies.

As it stands right now marriage mostly remains a privilege of the heterosexual. The majority discriminates against the minority of homosexuals in dictating that they are not allowed to be recognised as married. But this fails to recognise the possible contributions same sex couples can make to our society. This discrimination is also silly, entirely arbitrary and dangerous.

In order to avoid sounding religious and dogmatic some may argue along the utilitarian path and say that the original point of marriage was to provide more stable conditions in which to raise children. This pre-dates all religious thought by the virtue of happening at the dawn of humanity, before superstition and other cognitive side effects created the idea of God. The argument says that same sex couples are incapable of having children so there is no point in gay couples having marriages. It is true that same sex couples cannot reproduce. Same sex couples can however adopt (another topic of gay rights movement) and provide a loving and carrying home just as often as heterosexual couples, as proven by research. Does this not mean that providing same sex couples an opportunity to marry will result on average in even better home for their adopted children? Don’t gay marriages encourage same sex couples to adopt unwanted children and provide them with a loving home and thus benefiting society? It seems that from a utilitarian point of view same sex couples provide a net benefit, especially to orphans.

One must recognise that extending the definition of marriage to same sex couples does not in any way damage the marriage between heterosexual couples. How can it? homosexual couples are not going to climb through the window at night and steal heterosexual couples' marriage certificate. Does extending the definition of marriage result in heterosexual couples losing their love or affect their marriage? Obviously not. Imagine a situation in a heterosexual relationship where one partner, lets say the husband, tell his wife “honey, same sex marriage now is allowed, I don’t think I love you anymore. We have to split up.” Of course this is ridiculous. Discriminating against same sex couples on these grounds is not rational. It is a whim, a silly opinion, it is arbitrary.

Saying that we ought to have discrimination in one arbitrary area of life and have equality in all other areas of life may result in loss of all equality. If we can arbitrarily discriminate in one area of life, why not two areas? How about three? How about all of them? This is what arbitrariness is. The slippery slope to loss of equality before the law is thus established.

It seems to me that by following the liberal principle of equality before the law and thus extending definition of marriage to same sex couples will result in more equality before the law and a clear benefit to society. It will not result in anything catastrophic. How can recognising love and commitment between two people be a bad thing? One is perfectly entitled to dislike the gays, but why try to coerce them, or prevent them from doing good for the rest?

Civil Unions instead of Gay Marriage

One may think that civil unions for the gays are marriage in all but name. The gays have equal rights. But if they have equal rights in all but name, why not name these rights that which they are, i.e. marriage?! The reason if course is that they do not enjoy equal rights.

They also do not enjoy equal consideration by the majority of people. The recent California ballot initiative, Proportion 8, to define marriage as between man and woman and to limit marriage to such an arrangement has shown this. The initiative was passed by the majority. The majority of people do not like gays (mostly derived from the bible and other religious intolerances and nonsense not from some fact). This fight the gays are fighting is not about marriage, it is about much wider want of being accepting as equals. If gays were equal to other people in the eyes of the public there would be no arguments about them being able to have equal rights, like a right to marry.

One can only treat everyone equally by applying the same standards and rules to everyone. When one singles out a group or individuals and applies different rules and standards one is discriminating, one is not treating that group equally. Some would argue that it is possible to treat the gays equally yet somehow keep them separate. They propose to keep marriage for normal heterosexuals and civil unions for the gays but to have the civil unions grant the gays the same rights as marriage grants to heterosexuals. This would be exactly the same as the racist Jim Crow laws that kept the blacks separate but equal. Since the gays have done nothing wrong except to be born the way they are, singling them out and preventing them from doing something is treating them not equally. Preventing someone from causing damage or injury is justifiable. But what are the gays being prevented from doing exactly? They are prevented from expressing love and commitment to that love and to have this recognised by society. It seems strange to deny people to do this.